1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medical drill, more particularly, to a medical drill made of an amorphous alloy.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, during medical surgery related to bone repair, such as hip or knee replacement for treating broken bones, dental implants, and debridement, bone drilling is often necessary for implanting bone screws. For example, in treating a broken bone, a drill can be used to perform a bone drilling process and a bone screw is screwed into the bone to fix the broken bone. During the bone drilling surgery, a medical drill is necessary.
Medical drills are widely used in orthopedic or dental treatment. In general fracture surgery, a space with a certain size and depth would be formed in the bone by a medical drill, and then the location of the bone would be fixed through bone implants, such as bone screws and bone plates. In the dental field, dental drills are used in orthodontic treatment or dental implant treatment to form an opening on a gum and then to fix a bracket or a dental implant.
However, the drills used in the orthopedic and dental fields are generally made of martensitic stainless steel with a crystalline structure and an elastic limit less than 0.5%, and thereby the shift of the normal vector of force away from the center axis often causes the breaking of drills, resulting in surgical inconvenience and even medical disputes.
Regarding medical drills, US 2009208902 discloses a dental drill made of plastics. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 6,312,432 suggests a bone drill, but fails to disclose a novel material for medical drills.
As shown in FIG. 1, a medical drill generally has a pillar body, and threads 11 are formed in a certain portion of the pillar body. However, a conventional medical drill is often made of a crystalline metal, such as stainless steel (e.g. martensitic stainless steel), an alloy, ceramic, or plastic material. Therefore, breaking of medical drills often occurs and causes surgical inconvenience.
Hence, it is desirable to develop for medical drills a novel material which has excellent properties of good fracture resistance, enhanced corrosion resistance, high wear resistance, improved toughness and high hardness, and is advantageous to the operation of orthopedic or dental treatment.